Kate Harrison
, ContributorI write about green businesses and how to help startups succeed.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Low-income populations face many unique challenges and complex social struggles. At the top of the list: access to quality, affordable healthcare.

Fortunately, in the midst of an unpredictable political climate, many startups are stepping forward to meet the needs of those who lack the care they need. Here are four new companies pushing innovative coverage solutions to at-risk and underserved populations.

Fit4D CEO David Weingard learned he had Type 1 diabetes at age 36. A healthy marathoner and triathlete, Weingard ultimately left his job at Microsoft and made diabetes treatment his life’s work.

In particular, it was a CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator) who opened Weingard’s eyes to the reality of Type 1 diabetes and enabled him to move forward with his life. This personal, one-on-one relationship was so powerful, David decided to create Fit4D around this model.

“The problem that we want to solve for health plans, pharmaceutical companies and patients is how to keep people on their medications,” Weingard said. “What makes people stop taking their meds? Fear, forgetfulness, and potential negative side effects among others. I also wanted to make sure that those who cannot afford a solution like this had one."

Fit4D uses CDEs, working off an intelligent scripting algorithm, to work directly with patients at the center of its platform. This is how Fit4D has changed the curve on the hard to reach, overwhelmed patient population, the ones that are not likely to actually use an app in the first place. Personalized care mixed with technology is proven to improve adherence beyond any other solution available on the market. Minorities and at-risk populations, such as those on Medicare and Medicaid, are among the early beneficiaries.

The need for qualified caregivers, nursing assistants and nurses for elderly Americans is catastrophic. Through Cognotion’s digital training tools, the 60 percent of the U.S. population without a college degree is learning how to become the hero of their career.

Cognotion CEO Jo Schneider cites the discrepancies in training programs and education as the main cause behind the lack of qualified caregivers.

“Traditional training and education do not tap into the unlocked potential of people,” Schneider said. “In fact, most training is conducted in the most inefficient way possible: decontextualized material that people forget moments after they cram for a test. The problem is that we are standing at the brink of a massive economic and public health disaster in the making.”

Connecting Cognotion’s training material to the real world is a cinch. Schneider counts tens of millions of seniors in need of care – and an untrained, undermotivated workforce ready to step in.

“There is a tsunami of people aging into retirement, and we already have hundreds of thousands of empty positions needing to be filled around the country,” she said. “We simply don’t have the workforce ready to adequately care for the elderly, and our traditional mechanisms of training people into these positions are not working.”

According to research published by the American Association of Diabetes Educators, diabetes education decreases the risk of renal failure, neuropathy, and loss of vision by 40 percent. This leads to an annual savings of $1,500 to $3,000 per patient. Scale that up to the national level, and diabetes education could save the U.S. healthcare system billions of dollars.

Enter KingFit, a mobile application that delivers diabetes education from industry experts to the palm of your hand for free. With KingFit, patients learn a new, entertaining, and time-efficient way to manage diabetes.

“When my grandmother was diagnosed (with diabetes), she was sent home and told to live a healthier lifestyle. Unfortunately, she believed a healthy lifestyle meant drinking fruit juice instead of soda,” CEO Miguel Johns said. “This lead me to discover that out of the nearly 5,000 people diagnosed with diabetes per day in America, 95 percent of them have the same experience as my grandmother: Sent home without a clue of how to manage a serious chronic illness because they did not receive diabetes education.”

Featuring a slick, easy-to-use interface powered by the expertise of diabetes Ph.D.s, KingFit is a free download on both iPhone and iPad.

For low-income populations, access to quality mental health services is rare. When Samir Malik spoke with safety-net clinics – public hospitals, community health centers, healthcare providers working in high-risk areas – he discovered the need was critical across the U.S. Malik, the co-founder and general manager of Genoa Telepsychiatry, sought a way to bridge the gap.

“If Genoa Telepsychiatry can improve access, and as a result, help the millions of underserved receive better mental health care, we know we will have impacted lives in a meaningful way,” Malik said.

Genoa counts a team of more than 200 providers – psychiatrists and APRNs – who work with clinics, hospitals and payers to treat patients in established care settings and their own homes, providing care they wouldn't have otherwise. Malik said that 95 percent of Genoa’s 60,000 annual patients are Medicaid members, making it the largest outpatient provider of telepsychiatry services in the country.

“There are lots of holes in safety-net mental healthcare in the country,” Malik said. Hopefully, his company and the others listed here can help fill the gaps.